Greg Hinz On Politics

Cullerton to call Senate panel vote on CME-CBOE bill

I'm not quite sure whether this is real or not, but Illinois Senate President John Cullerton's office has scheduled a committee vote for around noon Wednesday on that bill to cut income taxes on Chicago's big trading exchanges.

The bill in question has been posted for the Senate Executive Committee, which will convene a few minutes before noon. A spokesman says Mr. Cullerton wants a vote.

Unless something changed overnight, Senate Republicans are still off the bill, big time. That means Mr. Cullerton would have to pass the measure benefiting CME Group Inc. and CBOE Holdings Inc. just with Democratic votes. But committee approval would at least get the measure to the Senate floor.

The Republicans are objecting that the bill, like other recent state incentives, just takes care of the big guys and does nothing for smaller businesses.

The solutions they kicked around in caucus Tuesday — including repealing the state's estate tax and restoring the loss-carry-forward provision in the state income tax — would be very expensive, well into the nine figures.

Of course, Mr. Cullerton's bill would cost the strapped state treasury about $100 million itself.

One potential compromise could be restoring the state's corporate tax credit for research and development. Mr. Cullerton is offering to put that credit back in the tax code for five years, but the Republicans want to make it permanent.

I'll keep you posted.

Updated at 11:45 a.m.: Mr. Cullerton has not yet worked out things with the Republicans but did offer a couple of amendments to his bill this morning. His staff isn't yet explaining what the amendments do, but they appear to affect how losses are treated under the state's corporate income tax code, at least for CME and CBOE.